Posted on 12/27/2003 8:20:35 AM PST by Chi-townChief
Was the capture of Saddam Hussein a major victory for the United States? It was certainly a victory in the extended Iraq war. It was a victory for President Bush over the man who plotted to kill his father. It was a victory for the U.S. military and its intelligence service -- especially for the lieutenant and the corporal who figured out how to find him. It was a victory for the Republican Party's plan to keep a stranglehold on American politics. But was it, as the president told us, a victory in the ''war on terrorism''?
Despite the media hoopla and the White House spin doctors, it was not. The administration legitimized the invasion of Iraq as part of the ''war on terrorism'' and deceived the American people into believing that Saddam was involved in the Sept. 11 attack and that he had ''weapons of mass destruction.'' No one, except possibly Vice President Dick Cheney and the Wall Street Journal, believed that Saddam was involved in the attack on the World Trade Center. The weapons of mass destruction have disappeared. The president asks a TV interviewer what difference the mass destruction question makes, now that we have eliminated Saddam from power.
Note how slippery the administration line has been. The purpose of the war now is to get rid of an evil man who had done horrible things to his own people, even if he wasn't a real threat to us. Would those Americans who are willing to settle for that rationale have bought it at the beginning of the war? Such is the slipperiness of the administration's dishonesty that it can get away with a change in motives for the war. Do those who buy this shifting of the deck of cards want to send American troops into North Korea or Iran or a half-dozen African countries to rid the world of similar evil men?
The truth is that Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and their ''neo-conservative'' intellectuals wanted a quick little war with Iraq to display America's strength as the world's only superpower even before the 2000 election. The attack on the World Trade Center provided an excellent excuse to unveil America's unilateral, preemptive foreign policy. Has the war made the United States any more secure from al-Qaida?
It would seem that it has not. Quite the contrary, it has stirred up a whole new phalanx of terrorists in Iraq with which we did not formerly have to contend.
It is reasonably well known that Osama bin Laden instructed his forces to have nothing to do with Saddam because he was a secularist and a socialist and not a good Muslim. A man who imagined himself as the holy Caliph of a new Islamic empire could hardly tolerate Saddam as one of his subjects.
The Iraq war, prolonged by unspeakably bad planning for the post-war period, has distracted the United States from the battle with terrorists. If the military force sent to Iraq and the immense efforts to capture Saddam had been diverted to pursuing bin Laden, Americans would be much safer today.
The ultimate failure of the Bush administration is that it permitted itself to be so consumed by its need to take on Iraq that it lost interest in hunting down bin Laden. Its ultimate dishonesty is the (effective) deception of the American people about Iraq.
So, brave and good American men and women continue to die in Iraq, as do good Iraqi men and women. The military tells us that the Army will have to remain for two more years. The war was not only unnecessary, it was unjust by any and all of the traditional canons of an unjust war.
Gen. Curtis LeMay, who led the firebomb raids on Japan (far more destructive than the atom bombs), once remarked that if the United States should lose the war, he would be tried as a war criminal. The United States won the war and no Americans were tried as war criminals. The victors are never tried.
The Bush administration is planning a trial for Saddam. The Europeans are insisting that it must be a ''fair'' trial, whatever that might be for such a man. No one in the Bush administration will be tried for the unjust and unnecessary Iraq war -- at least not by a court on Earth.
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You need to check out ebay. They are selling clues real cheap. Obviously you don't have one and are in dire need of one. Happy shopping.
I have NO IDEA what more you want!
"approve or disapprove on the President's handling of the war."
And the article SPECIFICALLY states:
"Sixty-three percent of respondents said they approved of the president's handling of foreign policy and the war on terrorism.
That sentence matches your question exactly!
You cannot get more specific than that.
Dude, you need to do a little homework. You are seriously ignorant of many facts, not the least of which is that Osama spent time in Iraq in the late 90's. Whether Osama hated Saddam had no bearing on his ability and/or desire to deal with him in attacking their common enemy. I assume you don't know that Saddam helped train Al Quaeda in Iraq? If you do know that and ignore it, then your posts aren't worth responding to. If you are unaware, then I suggest before you spout your nonsense, get the facts straight.
Big government is neither liberal or conservative, and it's size is an illusion. This government is the product of years of change and the wishes of the general public or majority.
There are many things that many of us do not agree with. But, overall, simply because you as an individual believe the way you do, does not make it invalid or function in the way that you percieve it.
The overall trend as of late, is that the general public is becoming more conservative and concerned with making this government more efficient and less intrusive. Size has very little to do with it...
You are desparate, aren't you?
The only person "missing Iraq" is you:
Post #42: "Where are the polls on Bush's approv rate on war?"
Post #67: "No the question -- anyone? is what are the polls like on approval for the war."
Post #72: "I am looking for a poll on the approval for handling of the war."
Post #76: "No it is not the same. Want to see up front "approve or disapprove on the President's handling of the war."
Face it, only after you were proven to be clueless do you try to add "Iraq" to your question. Most people are smart enough to realize the war with Iraq and terrorism are the same thing.
Begone troll.
Exactly, it was self defense. But, assuming thats argueable (which it isn't because only the US, not the UN, can make decisions on US security) have you read UN resolution 1441? There were "severe" consequences for non-compliance. Just because France and Germany told Saddam they would keep the US from attacking, doesn't mean the teeth of 1441 were not valid. The vote, BTW, on 1441 was 17-0.
Remember, Saddam signed a cease fire agreement back in 91/92 and for over a decade failed to live up to it. I assume you remember Saddam ATTACKED another nation, in violation of Iraq's agreement that they signed with the UN. After he got his butt kicked, he violated the terms of the cease fire agreement and we simply enforced the cease fire agreement. We could ill-afford to let him develop WMD's for use on the US, either directly, or through a surogate.
Just because you are relatively safe in Kansas, Dorothy, doesn't mean the rest of the nation is. The policy of pacification brought us WTC bombing I, the USS Cole, the Khobar towers, the embassey bombing in Africa, etc. etc. etc. I assume you are from the crowd that needed to see a mushroom cloud rise above Philadelphia, Washington, or NY City and wait for someone to take credit for it before doing anything? Wake up to the real world. Read a newspaper and educate yourself on whats going on around the world. We are at war, my friend. And Saddam was part of that war, believe it or not.
Are you aware of the fact that we found the mobile weapons labs? We found parts of their nuclear program. Heck, one of the scientists had stuff buried under his rose bushes and was told to keep them their until the UN removed sanctions. We found delivery systems that violated UN resolutions. We've been going through 9 1/2 miles of paper. When the administration puts all the pieces together within the next 11 months, all the naysayers are gonna have a lot of egg on their faces and NONE of them will admit they were wrong. They won't apologize for for their unfounded accusations.
Oh, I forgot, the President of the United States is supposed to be on TV 24/7 spewing information and intelligence to all the naysayers in an effort to gain support and in the process, blow the cover off our humint and sources. Some advice: Patience is a virtue. Put your trust where your brain tells you to, not your emotions.
And?
If you knew the answer, why did you continue to ask the question? Especially considering you've been given the same answer.
Do not imagine that a comment or commenter that has a different opinion tghan yourself is a troll, whateber you mean by that.
Asking the same question over and over and ignoring the responses is trolling.
Korea has nothing to do with the facts of Iraq. Rumsfeld said they haven't found the actual weapons - YET. What we have found is parts of their weapons PROGRAM. President Bush told EVERYONE that we were NOT going to wait for the threat from Iraq to be IMMINENT. And he was right. Iraq had every intention of re-constituting its WMD programs as soon as the sanctions were lifted. In order to do this, Saddam had his weapons programs scattered all over the country. We've found pieces of it.
The whole point about Saddam gassing the Kurds in 1988 was not to so much suggest he had chemical tipped warheads ready to fire at a moments notice. It was used as proof that Saddam had no qualms about using such horrible weapons. People also forget, including the news agencies, that while we were in Afghanistan, we found videos of Al Quaeda experimenting on animals with poison gases.
So in Iraq, the analogy is this. If Mosul had a Mr. Coffee machine, and Tikrit had coffee filters, and Bahgdad had coffee grounds, and another city had water - technically Saddam didn't have any coffee. We knew Osama wanted coffee. We knew Osama wanted to destroy the US. So you are the president, what would you have done?
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